Two nuns entered in a sway of skirts and veils, leading three men. Their obeisances toward the altar were perfunctory, though the men pulled off their hoods before, still chattering, they all came along the nave.
“And you can see there are no side aisles, so no pillars to be in your way,” the younger nun said eagerly. “The best place would be there, between the stalls, only the space is so narrow there’s not room for you to perform. So where would you like to be? What would suit best? What will you need, a screen, tables, musicians? I can play the lute.”
“Talented, too? Wonderful,” murmured one of the men, slender and fair, smiling as he bent his head to hear her more nearly.
The other men were looking around with an assessing rather than reverent air as they came on. But the black-haired man was also aware of the younger nun, and she let show her awareness of him, between smiles at the fair-haired one.
Sister Fiacre, from her rigid place at the foot of the altar steps, said, shrill with indignation, “Sister Amicia!”
The younger nun started, her chatter cutting off.
“And Sister Lucy!” Sister Fiacre added for good measure, though the other nun had also fallen silent and had been in no more than decorous conversation with the older man. “What is this?”
Sister Lucy said something in a low voice to the men and then hurried forward. “It’s by Domina Edith’s bidding. She said the players should see the church before they perform, remember? Sister Amicia and I have brought them, just as she said. It’s all right.”
“I doubt that.” Sister Fiacre began to wring her hands with nervous temper. “I told her what they were like. Now look at you both, gabbling at them as if you were village women when they shouldn’t even be in here at all. I don’t want them here.”
“But Domina Edith does,” Sister Lucy said. She looked around for confirmation to Sister Amicia, who, looking away from the gaze of the fair-haired man in a way that remained flirtatious, nodded agreement. From her place to the shadowed side, Meg recognized the men. The black-haired man had fought with Sym on the green. And the fair-haired one meeting Sister Amicia’s smiles with his own had stabbed Sym last night. Dame Claire had said it had been an accident, and no one’s fault. She had said it kindly, with sympathy, but firmly, so that Meg would understand there was going to be no one punished for what had happened.
Meg had accepted it the way she had had to accept so many other things. But to see him, to see them both here in this holy place, distressing this holy woman…
“The church is my concern!” Sister Fiacre said. “Domina Edith should have asked me to show it to them, if they have to be here.”
“She said you should be spared the burden of dealing with lay people-” Sister Lucy began.
Sister Amicia cut across her. “Especially men. We were to tell you they were coming, to prepare you, but then it just seemed easier to bring them along.”
The older man stepped past her and made a flourishing bow to Sister Fiacre. “Good sister,” he began in a rich, full voice, “pray, we mean only…”
Sister Fiacre cut him off with a small shriek. She stepped back, clutching her hands to her breast as if he had threatened her. “You! You dare!” She fluttered a hand out at him. “You were Lord Warenne’s man! You were all Lord Warenne’s men! I remember you, Thomas Bassett! I know all about you and why he turned you away! How can you dare profane this place?”
Frevisse, drawn from the cloister walk by Sister Fiacre’s raised voice, heard that much as she came in by the side door, and saw the momentary bewilderment on Bassett’s face begin to change toward alarm even as he said with a steady voice, “I fear you have the advantage of me, good lady.”
Under the strength of her indignation Sister Fiacre left off handwringing to point a shaking finger at him. “My brother told me! After he came in to his lordship, he said what you offered to do. You and those…those…others.” She flapped a hand at Ellis and Joliffe standing farther away with Sister Amicia all agog between them. “Sister Amicia, you come away from those two!” Sister Fiacre added with shrill fierceness. “Right away! You don’t know the wickedness about them that I know.”
Angry color was rising in both Ellis’s and Joliffe’s faces as she spoke, but it was Joliffe who said, “It’s your brother you don’t know about. That sanctimonious, prig-faced…”
“Joiiffe!”
Frevisse had never heard Bassett’s voice fully raised before. It surged to the wide roof beams of the nave and between the stone walls and stopped everyone, movement and voice, Joliffe as well as Sister Fiacre. Even Frevisse, startled, held her peace and place. It was Joliffe who recovered first and said, still angrily, to Bassett now, “There’s no reason we have to-”
Again Bassett interrupted. “There’s reasons. You think and you’ll remember them.” He rounded on Ellis, cutting him off, too. “You remember?” he demanded sharply.
“I remember,” Ellis said angrily. His anger was a darker kind than Joliffe’s. “We all remember them.”
“And well you should!” Sister Fiacre cried out. “Very well you should! My brother told me all of it! What you offered to do! What you said!”
Whatever else she was about to say, Frevisse cut off by coming forward. She knew too well the uselessness of trying to reason with Sister Fiacre when she was in this state and said in a deliberately quiet voice, “Whatever you know, I’m sure it’s not worth shouting in the church about, Sister Fiacre.”
“But these people offered to bring-”
“We? You have it the wrong way-” began Joliffe.
“Silence!” said Bassett. “This is not the time or place-”
“I agree,” said Frevisse in her most authoritative voice. She was perfectly aware of the edge she could give to words when she chose. She gave it now, and Sister Fiacre, her lower lip beginning to waver and tears filling her eyes, subsided.
Frevisse continued, “I’ll see to everything from here, Sister Fiacre. Sister Amicia will take you to Dame Claire, who will give you something to calm you. Sister Lucy will stay, and I will assist her with this.”
Protest trembled all over Sister Fiacre’s face but she was no match for any well-asserted authority and finally, with a little strangled cry and her hands clutched again to her breast, she bowed her head and let Sister Amicia lead her away. Meg left the shadows and hurried after her, her sudden appearance startling everyone but Sister Fiacre.
When they were gone and the side door shut behind them, Frevisse looked at Sister Lucy, who looked back with neutral quietness. Sister Lucy was well into her forties and had achieved Domina Edith’s serene detachment from emotional scenes. Now she seemed to feel that since Frevisse had taken on the problem, the problem was Frevisse’s; she offered no suggestions, and Frevisse turned to the players and said equably. “Now, Bassett, would you care to finish looking around and tell us what you will need for your performance?”
“Yes, thank you, my lady, we would.”
Joliffe and Ellis were still smoldering, but Bassett seemed calm. Or maybe he handled his anger better than the younger men did. As if the interlude with Sister Fiacre had not happened, Bassett began to inspect the nave to see where they could best perform, using questions and suggestions to draw Ellis and Joliffe after him and soothe their resentment away.
It was decided that, all in all, little was needed beyond what their own stock of properties could provide. Sister Lucy would see to lanterns being set around the church, the nuns could gather at the altar end, and the players would perform in the nave, just inside the western door.
“That’s all easily done.” Sister Lucy said. “I’ll be sure someone sees to it. Is there anything else?”